Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about one detail in Google's push for anti-open-internet regulation:
Goody. Mandating porn ID and, by association, tying porn use with that ID.
Sounds like Google is advocating for, among other things, government mandated collection of adults' fetishes tied to their names.
In second place, it's James Burkhardt with a piece-by-piece reply in an argument about crime rates with a Techdirt... regular:
6%, you say? But maybe it's 12% (you of course are just hoping)? Declined almost every year for 30 years?
The article you didn't read links to the source on the 12% claim.
The FBI's annual report on the nation's crime statistics showed a 6% decline in homicides in 2022. The drop exceeded what most crime experts expected, said Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst and consultant whose AH Datalytics' site is a widely cited source of information.
The FBI data, which the bureau compiled from reports filed by 18,888 local police departments, lags nearly a year behind reality. Asher, who puts together data from departments that cover a large majority of the nation's population, says that so far this year, homicides nationwide have declined 11% to 12%.6% was 2022. This year is 2023, not 2022 (i know you have difficulty with the concept of linear time). Current trends in reports suggest a 11-12% drop for 2023.
Violent crime is really fricken high, higher than most people have known in their adult lives
https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/
Unless most people are younger than 13, Most people in the US have experienced worse violent crime rates.
This also supports the claim that the crime rate has been shrinking almost every year for the last 30. And violent crime rates in this nation did not double.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Stephen T. Stone about Nintendo's latest edicts to esports leagues:
Nintendo loves the people who buy its products, but hates the fans of its products. The distinction is razor thin, but it's there.
Next, it's cassandra with a comment about techno-optimism:
re: techno-optimism: I'm plenty optimistic about technology. It's neat. The problem is people using it for unethical, short-sighted, and selfish purposes, from planned obsolescence to mass surveillance. I'm all for advancing science and technology but there's no single magical panacea that enough VC money will uncover and thereby fix the human condition.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is JMT with a simple rebuke in the thread about crime rates:
Well if the NY Post says so it must be true!
In second place, it's a bit of comedic typo pedantry from an anonymous commenter in response to a comment about a cat liter box":
A liter isn't big enough to fit a cat. Kitten, maybe.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous comment about qualified immunity:
None of the cited precedents address a 31-year-old male passenger wearing glasses and a blue and white checkered shirt. Qualified immunity granted."
Next, it's David with a comment about us criticizing the LAPD cops who played Pokemon on the job:
You think you are so smart
Let's see where your smugness gets you when Snorlax holds up your bank and there's no cop around with presence of mind and capability of throwing ultra-balls.
That's all for this week, folks!